The Challenge

While working at Anton & Partners, we were challenged by Piranesi to create an advertising campaign showcasing their most coveted couture pieces. The family-run business was founded in Milan over a century ago by Abraham Hajibay and was born from his desire for something that he said: “only the Italian Renaissance tradition of artistry could provide. The goal was to create an advertising campaign that paid homage to their Italian heritage and captured the artistry of their one-of-a-kind masterpieces in a striking and memorable way.

Services Provided:
Creative Direction
Art Direction
Compositing/Retouching

The Solution

Our idea was to showcase the couture jewels in stylized recreations of classic Italian Renaissance paintings. The concept was to portray the essence of the Brand’s Italian heritage and depict the influence of Renaissance artistry in the company’s DNA. A Masterpiece within a masterpiece is another way to frame it. From this, the “Italian Masterpieces” Campaign was born.

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We created original oil paintings for the backgrounds and photographed raw canvases to use as texture overlays on top of the original photography of the models. I did the digital imaging work on this project myself using multiple color adjustment layers and layer effects to blend the different mediums in a stylized manner. David Anton, my creative partner, and I worked hard to achieve the final look we envisioned. Want to give a big shout out to Elle Werlin, the wardrobe stylist on this job, and the fabulous Algene for the hair and makeup that brought our vision to life.

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The models’ skin was over retouched to look more painterly, and the artwork was color corrected to accentuate the jewelry and blend the different elements seamlessly as you can see more clearly in the before and after shots below.

A challenge in creating this was to make sure the canvas texture showed up in both print and large format outdoor media (billboards, canvas wraps, etc.) Multiple rounds of press proofs and test prints were used to perfect the stylized treatment and desired result.

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